


Predatory

by flaming_muse



Category: Stargate SG-1, White Collar
Genre: April Showers Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-16
Updated: 2010-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:52:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal was in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Predatory

**Author's Note:**

> for bethynyc, who asked for a crossover, predatory
> 
> Originally posted to my LJ on October 16, 2010.

Neal was in love.

It was a first edition deluxe subscriber’s copy volume of David Roberts drawings from his travels in Egypt and the Near East, a hundred twenty hand-colored lithographic plates mounted on card and trimmed to size with a gilt-bordered cover in nearly perfect shape for being from the 1840s. The paper was silk across one’s fingers. The colors were as vivid as the day they were inked. The dark green leather binding was as soft as a woman’s breast and nearly as intoxicating.

What it was doing in Colorado he would never know. Besides waiting for him.

Neal was utterly, helplessly in love… and similarly heartbroken, because the set was not in his hands but the hands of the man standing at the antiquarian bookshop’s counter, who was gazing at them with only a bit less adoration than Neal felt.

“Thank you,” the man said in a low, awed voice as the bookseller wrapped the volume – and its companions! Oh, it was a complete set! – carefully in acid-free paper and tucked them in a bag.

Neal watched his prizes disappear, and he turned his eye critically to their new owner. He could take what he wanted from him just as easily. The man was young, with floppy brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses in a shape that had never been in fashion. He had the air of a student, eager and casually dressed, but no student could have afforded such a luxury as these books. When he turned, Neal could see from the lines around his eyes that the man wasn’t as young as his battered leather satchel and well-worn jeans had made him appear. He was fit, too, with faint scars on his arms and a confidence in his step, like he hid beneath the scholarly surface a man who was rough and rugged.

As the man passed, Neal smiled at him, and he was pleasantly surprised by the assessing gaze in return before the distracted but promising smile. A frisson of anticipation ran up Neal’s spine. The chase would be as good as the reward, he thought happily. Well, almost as good.

Daniel, as Neal learned the man’s name was when he lifted the credit card receipt at the store, lived nearby and was easy to find. Neal stalked him for the better part of a weekend, casually having coffee in Daniel’s line of sight at a nearby diner and accidentally bumping into him at the newsstand in Daniel’s neighborhood . _Finally_ Daniel made the first move and introduced himself when they found themselves in line together at the local convenience store, and it didn’t take long for Neal to seduce him with wine and archaeological talk and garner an invitation back to his apartment.

Neal was delighted to find that Daniel was enthusiastic about more than just old books. He was gorgeous in bed once he got over his first flutter of nerves, and Neal had no trouble at all fogging Daniel’s clearly brilliant mind with pleasure. In fact, he enjoyed it so much he did it again. And again.

The next morning Neal had a smile on his face and a spring in his step as he left the apartment. He was sore and sated and a perhaps a little wistful. They could have had so much to talk about.

But Neal was in love, and his fingers were even more eager to touch the leather of the Roberts folios in his bag than they were to map Daniel’s warm skin. If he’d left the five-thousand-year-old white cross-lined ware bowl on Daniel’s shelf instead of taking it to finance his next heist, well… even Neal had his weak moments.


End file.
